SOA / Cloud Certification of „soaschool.com“ (SOACP) by Thomas Erl or Sun / Oracle Java Enterprise (JEE) Certification?

Which one should I do?

What IT certification should I do next? This is what I wondered within the last weeks, after I passed the SCJP 6 successfully some months ago. I surfed the internet a lot to find information about possible IT certifications.

Sun / Oracle JEE Certifications

These certifications are interesting, you can choose between EJB, GUI (JSP and Servlet), SCEA for Architects and some more. But there is a huge problem in my opinion: There is no good possiblity to self study for these exams. Only a few books exists. They have many errors and are also not up-to-date L So a JEE certification does not make any sense in my opinion – let’s wait for Oracle to update them and wait for proper self study possibilities.

Besides a Sun JEE certification, I only found the SOA certifications of soaschool as thinkable, good alternative.

„soaschool.com“ (SOACP) Certifications

Look at the website: www.soaschool.com! It looks interesting: Many modules, and you can choose the topic where you want to become a certified expert in. But I did also find many questions and no answers.

–       What ist the detailed content of each module?

–       Are the self study kits good? (they are very expensive!)

–       Does this certification bring any benefit? Do you learn something, or do you make it just to own the certification. (several other IT certifications exists, which do not make any sense at all, in my opinion)

„First-Hand“ Information (talking to Thomas Erl)

I was at the SOA Symposium 2010 in Berlin, Germany: http://www.soasymposium.com/. You can read my report about this IT conference  here: https://www.kai-waehner.de/blog/2010/10/06/soa-cloud-symposium-2010-in-berlin/

„soaschool.com“ was also present. They offer several SOA certifications. soaschool is founded by Thomas Erl, a well-know SOA expert. He also initiated the SOA Manifesto: http://www.soa-manifesto.org/

Thomas Erl wrote several books about SOA which I like a lot and already used in real world projects. For example, his SOA Design Patterns are considered as defacto standard. Also his explanations about XML Schema, Namespaces and WSDL are very good and easy to understand.

I seized on the opportunity and talked with Thomas Erl about the soaschool SOA certifications. I also investigated some of the self study kits about one hour.

There is also an interview with Thomas Erl available where he talks about these certifications: http://www.informit.com/podcasts/episode.aspx?e=a428fb21-a185-4065-8038-df635263721f

Conclusion: Yes, do the „soaschool“-Certification – I will, too!

The certifications of soaschool are very good, I will do it in the next months – here are the reasons for my decision:

–       Very good self study kits including the slides of the workshops, a book, a questionnaire and an Audio-Learning-CD

–       Worldwide (optional) workshops available (also personally, I prefer self studying)

–       You can decide what you wanna do: SOA consultant, analyst, architect, Java or .NET developer, security expert, cloud expert! Simply choose your relevant modules

–       Really practical contents (overlapping a lot with the SOA books of Thomas Erl). For example: As developer or architect, you have to do Module 2 and 5, which primarily test your XML and WSDL knowlegde.

–       Based on defacto SOA standards (e.g. the SOA Design Patterns of Thomas Erl’s book are present worldwide)

–       You do not only pass the exam to pass it and get the certification (as it is with many other IT certifications) BUT you really learn a lot of stuff which you can apply in your next SOA and cloud projects…

–       Java Enterprise Edition (JEE) certifications (as alternative) have several deficits at the moment, as I already stated above

So, I will start preparing for Module 1 and 2 to be a SOA Certified Professional soon! Then I will think about which further Modules to take. Are you convinced to take the soaschool exams, too? Or did you choose another certification? If so, tell me your reasons, please…

Best regards,

Kai Wähner (Twitter: @KaiWaehner)